Of course the absence of the headphone jack on those new Google (GOOG,GOOGL) devices went unsung. The tech giant should have enoughsearch data to know this move would irritate people who won’t want to scrap their wired headphones or plug the 3.5-mm audio cables on them into adapter dongles.

That leaves new Pixel shoppers even worse off than iPhone owners. While Apple (AAPL) wasequally foolish in ditching the headphone jack, it has at least been able to spawn a niche market for headphones using its Lightning connector. Now, dropping $799 and up for a Pixel 3 or $899 and up for a Pixel 3 XL—or $599 or more for the equally audio-output-starvedPixel Slate tablet—will reward you with the narrowest possible set of listening options.

No success in accessories

The best-case scenario with a Pixel 3 is that you’ll use the USB-C headphones that come in the box—at the cost of not being able to charge the phone at the same time unless it’s positioned on a wireless-charging surface. But if you want something better, good luck shopping.

“There is a huge hole in the accessories market for USB-C headphones,” observed Avi Greengart, an analyst with the research firmGlobalData. One major reason: They represent a lousy business, even compared to Apple’s proprietary Lightning and itslicensing fees.

“USB-C is an immature standard,” Greengart wrote. “Everyone seems to implement it differently, and it does cost vendors more than analog connectors.”

Some three-quarters of all headphone sales in the 12 months ending in August involved wired models, said Steve Baker, a vice president for industry analysis at theNPD Group. That sector of the market is, however, shrinking by about 3% a year and getting less profitable, with average prices nearing $10.

Summed up Baker: “So if consumers like wired (and they do), adding USB-C is going to add cost and complexity to a segment that is looking for low cost and ease of use.”

That should explain why such value-priced accessories vendors asAnker andMonoprice are avoiding both USB-C and Lightning headphones.

What this leaves you with

If USB-C is nowhere near becoming the next headphone standard, what else?

To its minimal credit, Google includes a USB-C-to-3.5-mm adapter with each Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, while Apple elected to stop bundling a Lightning-to-3.5-mm dongle withthis year’s lineup of iPhones. But you’ll probably need more than one of these adapters, $12 a pop from Google but cheaper elsewhere.

Apple would have us think that wireless is an answer. That’s not crazy if you talk all the time to a digital-assistant app: Bluetooth headphones likeApple’s AirPods will free you from having a cable snaking from your head to the phone in a pocket or purse.

“With the rise of digital assistants, headsets have become much more part of the experience than they ever were,” wroteCreative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi in an e-mail. They’re also far more profitable than the wired sort, constituting 67% of headphone-market revenue in NPD’s numbers.

But once Siri shuts up, Bluetooth’s experience is worse than that of wired headphones. GlobalData’s Greengart recited their flaws: “Wireless headphones are more expensive, they can be difficult to pair, they require charging, and they don’t work with legacy systems — like airplane seatback monitors.”

“Everybody wants to be Apple,” as Milanesi said. But Pixel phones and a few other un-jacked phones—for instance, theupcoming OnePlus 6T—represent a tiny morsel of the Android market next to such mainstream phones as Samsung’sGalaxy S9 and S9 Plus. The Pixel won’t be Google’s iPhone.

Google could have taken a different path by giving its users the choice of having a headphone jack if they wanted one. That would have honored the “respect our users” principle that hardware vice president Rick Osterloh outlined at the start ofGoogle’s press event Tuesday. Instead, the company bet a second time on the most customer-hostile trend in phone design.